Space 'the final corporate frontier'

I was just looking at an article in National Geo recently and one of the last sentences struck me as kinda odd. They mentioned that the world space
agency's where possibly going to abandon the space station all together! I gather from rising cost etc. This got my thinking about the explosion of
private company's that have come around in the last decade or so with the aim of getting to space, something that probably the private sector
wouldn't have dreamed of when NASA etc was in it's full flight! Anyway my thought was if the governments of today are really giving up on getting to
space except through corp money then have we sold off the rights to space to the McD's of the near future? Will "Space" just become another number
on the God Dam stock exchange to be battered and sold with illusionary numbers like our lives are run by now?
or am I looking at this from the wrong angle?
thoughts please!

I actually would like to see private firms take the reigns on space flight. They have more money and know-how and once the ball gets rolling it will
pave the way for cheap space flight. Like what happened with planes.

Yeah there's def a plus side. Although you wouldn't get me in a ladda space van.
I was more wondering why big G has suddenly pulled out so fast after spending so much effort and money/time to get there. I don't think money is
really the issue

Governments colonized the New World with limited success....Only after private companies were allowed to form companies for colonization and profit
was the New World...aka America, successfully and permanantly settled.

Likewise, man and world governments have been to space and explored...

But the drive to obtain mineral resources, develope commodities in a weightless enviroment, and settle space for profit will ensure a continuous and
purpose driven exploration of not only space, but technologies.

I magine massive space stations in orbit... some to mine asteroids for minerals, some to grow crops in a perfect controlled enviroment, some to
produce and process metals or water or gases....

Imagine that the colonists fell under represented and used and over taxed and decide to seek independence and establish their own government.... or a
confederation of space station colonists and moon based colonists form a mining cartel... or an orbital Las Vegas...

Yeah there's def a plus side. Although you wouldn't get me in a ladda space van.
I was more wondering why big G has suddenly pulled out so fast after spending so much effort and money/time to get there. I don't think money is
really the issue

I think it has alot to do with money;

Q. How much does the Space Shuttle cost?
A. The Space Shuttle Endeavour, the orbiter built to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, cost approximately $1.7 billion.

The International Space Station will eventually be crashed into the Pacific Ocean somewhere around 2020. Maybe later. While it's primary mission has
been to serve as a zero gravity research lab, almost nothing has been achieved.

The station itself was only designed to operate until around 2015 but that retirement date was extended. As it is now, the station is in constant need
of repair and has suffered an increasing number of technical problems.

NASA has never been about profit. If you want the future of space exploration to succeed, you NEED corporations. Inevitably, they would be the ones
making the real advances because they would be the ones with something to gain.

If you want to colonize the moon, it's going to be because somebody wants to make a buck off the Helium 3 or precious metals found in the thousands
of asteroids underneath the Moon's surface.

thankyou just the answers I was looking for. I hope once we really get into space and away from earth bound ideals like country's etc that maybe our
way of thinking might become more grown up and we can drop this us and them attitude and just become 'us'. Now wouldn't that be something?!?!

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.